Attorneys: Topeka seeks to limit access to shooting video
TOPEKA, Kan. — The city of Topeka is trying to prevent the parents of a black man fatally shot by police from reviewing officers’ body camera footage by arguing that state law permits only his young children to see it, lawyers for the family said Monday.
Attorney Gillian Cassell-Stiga said the city agreed last week to allow Dominque White’s parents to view the footage from his Sept. 28 shooting by two officers near an east Topeka park. But Cassell-Stiga said the city later said that a 2016 state law limits a review of the footage to White’s four children, aged 3 to 13.
Cassell-Stiga said White’s family does not intend to have the children view the footage “anytime soon.” Family members have said they’ve been told little about the 30-year-old’s shooting, and no information about the officers has been released.
“It is so entirely ridiculous,” Cassell-Stiga said. “The position the city has decided to take is absurd and practically untenable.”